MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota judge has ruled that a man who says he was sexually abused by a priest in the 1970s can move forward with his claim that church leaders created a “public nuisance” by failing to warn parishioners about the priest.

Ramsey County Judge John Van de North’s ruling means the case against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona will be the first clerical sexual abuse case nationwide to use the public nuisance theory at trial, attorneys for the victim said Wednesday. The public nuisance claim has already led to the unprecedented disclosure of tens of thousands of church documents and the names of dozens of accused priests.

“Failing to disclose information about an accused priest is akin to, and conceivably more offensive and dangerous, than other acts that have been considered public nuisances,” Van de North wrote in his order dated Tuesday. Harboring worrisome dogs, maintaining houses of prostitution, and swearing in public have been found to be public nuisances, the judge said.

Lawyers for the church had argued the claim should be dismissed, saying it doesn’t meet the legal criteria for a public nuisance, which Minnesota law defines as “unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public.”

But Tom Wieser, an attorney for the archdiocese, said Wednesday he was not surprised by the judge’s order. He said from the judge’s perspective, there is enough information under the law to allow the claim to move forward.

Jeff Anderson, an attorney for the victim, called the ruling a breakthrough in child protection efforts.

Van de North had also refused to dismiss the public nuisance claim back in December, saying that doing so at that time wouldn’t provide an opportunity to gather evidence to support the claim. That decision led to the disclosure of the documents and accused priests’ names.

This lawsuit was filed in May 2013 under a law that opened up a three-year window for victims of past sexual abuse to file claims that were otherwise barred under the statute of limitations. The plaintiff, identified in court documents as Doe 1, claims he was abused by Thomas Adamson in 1976 and 1977, when the victim was an altar boy at St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul Park.

The complaint alleges the archdiocese and diocese were negligent in allowing Adamson continued access to children, even though leaders knew he had behaved inappropriately with young boys.

Adamson said in a May deposition that he molested around 12 teens between the 1960s to the mid-1980s. He was removed from active ministry in 1985 and defrocked in 2009. He was never criminally charged.

The case is scheduled for trial Nov. 3.